‘The Bucket List’ Writer Sends Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton ‘Gently Down the Stream’

Justin Zackham, the director writer of The Bucket List,has a new indie comedy in the works that already boasts a pretty impressive cast. Gently Down the Streamwill star Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton as a divorced couple who pretend that they are still married during their adopted sons wedding, in order to avoid offending his birth mother. Apparently she hates divorced people or something, even though giving a kid up for adoption is A-OK. I don’t know; I’m sure the movie will explain it better than I do.

In addition to De Niro and Keaton, the film will also star two young, blonde actresses in Katherine Heigl and Amanda Seyfried. I find the inclusion of these two particular interesting because they are both good actresses who have done a string of really bad movies, and yet Heigl gets a really bad rap for her choices, but Seyfried’s haven’t seemed to have caught up with her yet. Perhaps the difference is that people really loved Seyfried in things like Mean Girls and Mama Mia! and nobody has really liked Heigl in anything since, uh, My Father the Hero? No, wait, she was the niece in Under Siege 2. That movie totally owned. Regardless, I have a weird thing where I will see pretty much everything that Seyfried is in, no matter how bad it looks, but whenever I hear Heigl’s name I always groan. It will be interesting to hear how people respond to the news of this project. I can’t decide if it sounds like harmless fun aimed at general audiences or something that will go down like poison.

Producer Avi Lerner seems to be confident of all the pieces in place. He says, “Working with Diane and De Niro again will be great. Katherine and Amanda are young talented actors. It is good casting. Justin’s script is well written and he is the right choice to direct. It is going to be a warm-hearted, funny film.” So, it kind of sounds like whether or not you’re going to like this film will come down to how you responded to The Bucket List. If you’ve got faith in Zackham, good show. If not, this one could get pretty hairy.

Zackham says of the film,“I’m excited to be able to continue what we started with on The Bucket List; iconic actors in a funny, adult, character-driven story, albeit with a little more sex and bad behavior on everyone’s part.” This, at least, is good news, because the Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman sex scene was my favorite part of The Bucket List.

Movie fans outside of the US should take note, when this one hits your local theaters it will do so under the title The Big Wedding, presumably because you hate adorable children’s songs. How dare you. [Variety]

Correction: We erroneously labeled Zackham as the director of The Bucket List in the original version of this post instead of Rob Reiner. Zackham wrote the screenplay. Apologies to our audience and anyone who was physically injured by the mistake. Also, apologies to Rob Reiner for outing him now as the director of The Bucket List.

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